Jay Lillie

An Open Letter to Barack Obama and/or his successor in office:

It is not noble for you and persons like Al Gore to lead the world toward the elimination of carbon fuels if in the process you subvert the short and long term interests of your own people.

Fact: Our nation is borrowing money from other countries to meet its current obligations, including interest on that same mushrooming debt, a circumstance that will debase the value of the Dollar and destroy our way of life if not reversed within a couple of years.

Fact: Creditor nations understand that we need to balance our federal budget or the Dollars they hold will plummet in value – Why? – Because we’ll be forced to continue printing paper fiat Dollars to meet obligations for which we otherwise have no money – this is the classic path to hyperinflation, which has been destroying societies for over 2,000 years . . . check out Milton Friedman and Keynes if you don’t believe me.

Fact: If we continue spending money we don’t have, the Arab states, Venezuela and Russia will soon stop accepting Dollars in payment for the oil we will need for a long time to come, and other countries like China and India will not loan us Dollars since what they’ll get back when repaid will not be worth what they loaned, and, defacto, the Dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency.

Question: When this happened in countries like Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, we (and the IMF) bailed them out in exchange for they’re agreeing not to continue printing fiat currency – But who’s going to bail us out?

Suggestion: It is easier and far less harmful for America to become oil and carbon energy self-sufficient on the supply side NOW (as we can if allowed) – so we can cease the importation of Arab oil, thereby eliminating our foreign exchange deficit and buying time to get our federal budget balanced until sustainable green energy sources and more efficient uses can fill the Nation’s needs . . . totally.

Point: If you’re not prepared to lead us to carbon energy independence then you better stop right now spending Dollars you don’t have!

Our Man the President

I have watched Barack Obama bring in liberal progressives, one after the other, each with a well published agenda meeting and advancing the tightening and broadening of federal regulations in all areas of industrial and social application, while at the same time he parades around the country and the world espousing balance in business and job-friendly policies that never see the light of day.

Either the man is a fraud or he thinks we are very dumb.

Trust is something that is earned. Obama came into the Oval Office preaching to the world that he was going to do many – many – things, some good, some not so good, in my opinion, but the point is he’s done none of them. Why then should we trust anything he says, even when he speaks in golden tones, with catchy word-friendly bits of humor?

It’s amazing to me that anyone trusts him. The people who made him President, the Chicago group that groomed him for the job, probably are the real powers behind the throne, and they know the man has the ability to engender trust where none is due. They also know the people hope things will get better and that this translates into belief in the face of misinformation.

Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything these people behind Obama, including his attractive wife, will not do to get him reelected, and this worries me more as time goes by and it becomes more and more apparent that the man will not earn another term. The power they hold in their hands is awesome, and they’ve proven themselves unafraid to use it. If the economy is as bad a year from now, and more of us have come to realize the man is not what he says, what will they instruct him to do?

More later as we watch this play out.

Link to Interview: www.emergingnovelists.com

The New President, whoever it is, will need to confront a growing set of connected problems in our own backyard. These involve the extra-territorial ambitions of Russia, China, Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers. These ambitions affect every nation in the Western Hemisphere, and are concentrated at the moment within the Caribbean.

The Caribbean Sea can be bisected by a line drawn between two very strategic points . . . Guantanamo Bay in the far Northeast and the Panama Canal in the extreme Southwest. The Canal is owned by Panama and operated by China. Guantanamo Bay, an unusually deep and well-protected harbor, is under lease from Cuba to the United States for use as a naval base. It’s no secret that we’re using it for other things.

If you bisect the Caribbean on the other diagonal from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in the West to Venezuela in the East you get a much longer line that envelopes Columbia, Venezuela, and all of Central America in the southern half. It is this half where the largest of the current risks lie, just as it is on the Guantanamo/Panama line where the conflict will play out a few years from now.

Let’s take the immediate first. Castro and Chavez are at the center of a propaganda campaign being waged by those two with Russia. At the same time, emboldened by their new wealth and spurred on by Nato’s spreading its wings into Eastern Europe, Russia is arming Chavez with warplanes and missiles. Cubans can still remember the Russians from their partnership in the 1960’s and 70’s, and, while that memory is not sublime, the Russian flirtation plays into Castro/Chavez anti-US propaganda.  The people of both these countries apparently need a constant reminder that Washington is at the root of all their problems – not Bolivarian socialism.

China has been making deal after deal in Latin America . . . mostly trading rights for the raw materials they know they’ll need in the future for cash, of which China has plenty.  They’re also involved with Cuba to drill for oil off the coast, and with Venezuela to widen the Panama Canal.

Havana is entwined with Hugo and his attempts to spread the Cuban form of Bolivarian populism (communism) to South and Central America. To date, the effort has gained traction in Bolivia, Uruguay, Honduras, and Nicaragua; came very close in Mexico and Brasil; and the vote is still out in Argentina and Peru. The U.S. Congress hasn’t helped by refusing to affirm the treaty with Columbia on Democratic/Republican political grounds. We’ll explore this populist movement in the coming weeks, look at the effect it will have on all U.S. citizens, and what the new President will need to do to enhance our influence in the region.

If he can establish a leadership posture in this Hemisphere, we may be able to avoid the strategic risks involved in having both the Panama Canal and the Guantanamo Bay facility outside our sphere of influence (or needing a military solution to avoid such an outcome). 

To give what away this time?

Jimmy Carter in Havana . . . where he certainly was this week . . . why was he there? My guess . . . to see what kind of deal could be made with Castro and particularly . . . what if we give Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba the way Jimmy Carter did with our bases in Panama?

The reason I know truth is stranger than fiction is that you can’t make these things up. The general plot of my next novel . . . Washington trying to make a deal with Havana, and the chaos that follows. Jimmy may have beaten me to it.

Maybe Carter’s trip to Havana was an attempt on Obama and Hillary’s part to get around the provision in the Helms/Burton law that prohibits anyone in our government from doing it until the claims of Cuban Americans against Cuba are acted upon.

So . . . what’s the answer in these times of popular uprisings?

Easy . . . Congress should scrub the Embargo against our own people completely and let American business go to Cuba and open up shop. Congress can do this unilaterally . . . then we’ll see how long Cuban Communism and Raul can last. He’ll be coming to Washington on his knees to reinstate the Embargo.

PUBLISHED EXACTLY TWO YEARS AGO

Alex Santiago is a composite of three persons I got to know in Miami during my book tour promoting Havana Passage. Alex is a citizen of the United States, but his family comes from Cuba. He knows a bit about the Castro brothers and about life in Cuba during his parents time and more recently. After seven months of the Obama Administration I revisited my composite, Alex, to get his side of the story

I asked him:

Do you see any progress in our leaders in Washington understanding what has to be done in Cuba?

“I do not. The failures go back through seven Presidential Administrations, and as many Congresses. I hoped we might see some improvement from the latest crowd on Capitol Hill, but what I see is worse. Barack Obama is letting the far left make the case for him that communism in Cuba has a good side. His agenda, I fear, is to use Cuba to advance his own ideas elsewhere, including here at home.”

So what’s the answer?

“The answer to finding a route to freedom for the people of Cuba is not to let our elected officials or our bureaucrats in Washington get involved trying to make deals with the Castro regime. They don’t know what they don’t know, and they’re unlikely to listen and learn. Why should they . . . they already know everything. Raul and his henchmen will take them to the cleaners.”

That’s a bit hard, isn’t it? What’s the alternative to sending our politicians and bureaucrats down there to jawbone Raul Castro?

“Congress can and should unilaterally scrub the embargo against U.S. citizens doing business in Cuba. Then we sit back and see what the Castros do.”

They won’t let us in.

“Why not?”

They don’t want real business to take hold

“Exactly. Business requires freedom to make decisions, and this can transform Cuba the way it did Eastern Europe and is doing in China; or the Castro regime will need to take excessive measures to keep U.S. business out, which in turn will result in their eventual overthrow from within . . . also as occurred in Eastern Europe. All Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton need to do is stand tall and keep Hugo Chavez and his buddies from the mid-east and Russia from moving to support Cuban Communism 90 miles off our shores.”

Then what?

“The process will take time, but not anywhere near the 25 years our current policy has had to fail. Part of the answer is to admit there’s no quick fix for the right outcome.”

That doesn’t sound like Congress.

“If you mean will the current crowd in the White House take this step? Not likely, for two reasons: If the key persons in our own government don’t support capitalism here, why would they foster its growth in Cuba? The second reason is that our legislators and bureaucrats, like most everywhere, believe in the governmental approach to solving all problems . . . They think meeting with their counterparts in Havana, people with whom they share a common self-importance and whose top-heavy perspective they can understand, is the way to go”

You’re not at all optimistic

“It doesn’t help that all we hear in the press these days is what a wonderful leader this man Fidel Castro has been, that Hugo Chavez is a hero for overcoming previous American animosity and the CIA, and that Raul Castro is making the right changes to free-up the Cuban society”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?

“Not really. Please don’t misunderstand me, but every time I see Barack Obama making one of his ongoing, powerful, flowery speeches to rally his supporters, the picture of a younger Fidel Castro on the pulpit in Revolutionary Square comes back to haunt me. The European left sees this and smiles. Remember, Fidel didn’t come out of the communist closet until after he’d conned everyone and had solidified power, then he took no prisoners. Old, and now infirm, he still doesn’t.”

Alex Santiago is a composite of three persons I got to know in Miami during my book tour promoting Havana Passage. Alex is a citizen of the United States, but his family comes from Cuba. He knows a bit about the Castro brothers and about life in Cuba during his parents time and more recently. After seven months of the Obama Administration I revisited my composite, Alex, to get his side of the story.

Do you see any progress in our leaders in Washington understanding what has to be done in Cuba?

“I do not. The failures go back 25 years through seven Presidential Administrations, and as many Congresses. I hoped we might see some improvement from the latest crowd on Capitol Hill, but what I see is worse. Barack Obama is letting the far left make the case for him that communism in Cuba has a good side. His agenda, I fear, is to use Cuba to advance his own ideas elsewhere, including here at home.”

So what’s the answer?

“The answer to finding a route to freedom for the people of Cuba is not to let our elected officials or our bureaucrats in Washington get involved trying to make deals with the Castro regime. They don’t know what they don’t know, and they’re unlikely to listen and learn. Why should they . . . they already know everything. Raul and his henchmen will take them to the cleaners.”

That’s a bit hard, isn’t it? What’s the alternative to sending our politicians and bureaucrats down there to jawbone Raul Castro?

“Congress can and should unilaterally scrub the embargo against U.S. citizens doing business in Cuba. Then we sit back and see what the Castros do.”

They won’t let us in.

“Why not?”

They don’t want real business to take hold.

“Exactly. Business requires freedom to make decisions, and this can transform Cuba the way it did Eastern Europe and is doing in China; or the Castro regime will need to take excessive measures to keep U.S. business out, which in turn will result in their eventual overthrow from within . . . also as occurred in Eastern Europe. All Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton need to do is stand tall and keep Hugo Chavez and his buddies from the mid-east and Russia from moving to support Cuban Communism 90 miles off our shores.”

Then what?

“The process will take time, but not anywhere near the 25 years our current policy has had to fail. Part of the answer is to admit there’s no quick fix for the right outcome.”

That doesn’t sound like Congress.

If you mean will the current crowd on Capitol Hill take this step? Not likely, for two reasons: If the key persons in our own government don’t support capitalism here, why would they foster its growth in Cuba? The second reason is that our legislators and bureaucrats, like most everywhere, believe in the governmental approach to solving all problems . . . They think meeting with their counterparts in Havana, people with whom they share a common self-importance and whose top-heavy perspective they can understand, is the way to go.”

You’re not at all optimistic.

“It doesn’t help that all we hear in the press these days is what a wonderful leader this man Fidel Castro has been, that Hugo Chavez is a hero for overcoming previous American animosity and the CIA, and that Raul Castro is making the right changes to free-up the Cuban society.”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?

“Not really. Please don’t misunderstand me, but every time I see Barack Obama making one of his ongoing, powerful, flowery speeches to rally his supporters, the picture of a younger Fidel Castro on the pulpit in Revolutionary Square comes back to haunt me. The European left sees this and smiles. Remember, Fidel didn’t come out of the communist closet until after he’d conned everyone and had solidified power, then he took no prisoners. Old, and now infirm, he still doesn’t.”

His nose twitched and he wickedly winked at me. “Come on Big Boy, give it up.”

How much?

“What you got?”

Twenty Five cents. Will that do it?

“What you think, Big Boy?”

I don’t know. I’m from Missouri.

“You certainly are not from Missouri. You from D.C., Big Boy.”

Okay, so how much?

“All the Kings Horses, and all his woooo-men.”

I don’t have any horses.

“You got no woooo-men either, Big Boy.”

So what do you want from me?

“A license.”

To do what?

“Anything and everything: To spend your money; make you pay and pay; mortgage your children’s lives; give my friends what they want; buy your vote; send you packing; tie your hands; and bury you on the lone prairie.

Not much room in there for what I might want. I thought you were on my side.

“What side be that?”

Aren’t we on the same side here? It’s all one country.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Who do you think you are, anyway?

“Exactly. Just check your vote at the door, and get the HELL out of here.”

No. I’m not giving you my vote, and you’re the one who’ll be leaving.

“You can’t get rid of me. I’m in the details.”

I should have known . . . the devil’s always in the details.

Originally released in October, 2008 and republished by Popular Demand

My unabridged defines “populism” in several ways.

Philosophy of the Peoples Party is one . . . that sounds like Chinese communism or at least European socialism.

Anti-intellectualism is another . . . although Barack and Michelle Obama, for example [Columbia undergrad and Harvard Law], are certainly intellectuals.

Egalitarianism and extolling the working class is a third . . . and here we think of communism again, mostly as it was under Karl Marx.

Extolling of the underdog . . . a great American pastime.

You get the drift . . . downtrodden people of the world unite!

So why is it such a popular movement these days? Why is populism going strong in places like Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua . . .and now, maybe, the good old U.S.A?

Populism has been the route for taking control in South American countries since Simon Bolivar. The list is long . . . from Bolivar through Peron to Chavez and Castro. Some were elected in the first instance, and others just took power by force, but they all have in common promising to take from the rich and give to the poor. Of course they all took very big commissions for themselves, now residing in Swiss bank accounts.

Did it work? Did the poor get good jobs, lots of cash, and a better life? If so, you’ll need to tell me where, because I haven’t seen it. This is the big secret . . . populism has never done anything for the poor it’s supposed to help. What it’s good at is destroying economies and enriching the leaders who make the promises . . . sort of like being first-in first-out in a pyramid scheme. At best, populism is good intention going straight to hell.

Case in point: The populist notion underlying the Acorn movement to help poor people buy homes. A good idea if done right, and a disaster for all of us if mishandled by politicians looking after themselves and their friends. If you want to know who are the culprits here besides Fannie May listen to the news or send e-mails to three or four news stations until you get some straight answers.

Case in point: Juan Peron of Argentina. This bit of populism is forever immortalized by the opera “Evita”. Go see the musical or get the CD . . . it’s broken promises set to the wonderful music of Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Case in point: Hugo Chavez. This is a work in progress, but have a look at Cuba if you want to see how Venezuela will end up. Also look at where Chavez’ friends reside . . . Russian, Iran, and China. All of us Americans need to be careful not to fall for Populist promises . . . especially those of us who really need help.

We’ve been hearing a lot of promises, and not only from the urban party that revels in it, and always has. My grandfather was a Harry Truman Democrat who saw clearly in 1941 that the Populist regime of Franklin Roosevelt that he’d supported for ten years did not bring him or his family out of the Depression, but rather made it deeper and more far-reaching . . . especially for the working class of which he was a part. When you hear someone start talking about the “New Deal” . . . run as fast as you can in the other direction . . .and take your vote with you.

The United States Constitution is a simple, straightforward, document until it needs to be applied to living persons and everyday situations. Billions of hours and dollars have been spent over more than two centuries shaping its words and bending its intentions to meet certain ends. Its very simplicity has made it an exercise field for lawyers and Constitutional scholars.

The drafters used a minimum of well-chosen words, simply stated, to craft the Constitution into the spine of our nation. You can look at the document in two parts . . . the first is structural, setting up an Executive Branch to implement its terms and the terms of all laws passed by the Legislative Branch, and adding a Supreme Court to keep them both, and us, on the straight and narrow. The second part is the Bill of Rights, comprised originally by Amendments 1-10.

In the Bill of Rights, citizenship plays virtually no role.

In the structural segment, citizenship has an all-important function. In one form or another the President and members of Congress are required to be citizens. However, nothing can be found in the words of the Constitution about citizenship being required to sit as a Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

Therein lies a Tale . . . and a thought completed in my new novel, JUSTICE